Christian Sardet is founder and emeritus research director of the Laboratory of Cell Biology at the Marine Station of Villefranche-sur-mer (OOV), part of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) in Paris. He is also one of the co-founders and  coordinator of the Tara Oceans Expedition and initiator of the Plankton Chronicles project, www.planktonchronicles.org.